In a varied career that has made him one of America’s most listened-to sax players, Dave Camp has toured with Buddy Rich and Chuck Mangione and recorded with the likes of Al Stewart, Jeffrey Osbourne and Peter White. It’s time this gifted artist stepped out on his own. To that worthwhile end, 1201 Music’s Smooth Sounds is delighted to present Torrid Rain Camp’s first CD under his own name. Here, surrounded by a group of accomplished, like-minded friends, Camp stretches his artistic legs, wailing on a gaggle of original tunes, finding his own groove on flute, tenor and soprano. It’s the summation of a musical life that began at the age of 8, when Camp first picked up the flute and found his calling. The sax followed three years later, and in short order Camp was a fixture with the Monterey Jazz Festival all-star High School Band. During these early years, the young prodigy also played tour dates with Mangione and Doc Severinsen. Rather than go on the road right out of high school, Camp enrolled in the prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he majored in saxophone performance and, in the really first break of his career, hooked up with Buddy Rich. After graduation, Camp toured Japan with his own band-playing to packed houses for three weeks-then he went back home to California, where he’s been based ever since. For the past decade, Camp has toured and recorded regularly with Stewart and White. And he’s done frequent gigs with Windows, the popular contemporary jazz group whose releases on Blue Orchid are regular residents on the NAC charts. (Camp’s work with Windows can be heard on From the Asylum and Apples and Oranges, which also features Peter White.) The Camp-Windows connection is very much alive on Torrid Rain Windows founder/leader Skipper Wise produced the album. White co-engineered it, co-wrote many of the songs and lent his performing artistry to every cut but one. That’s him, for instance, playing the nifty acoustic-guitar solo on “You Say.” Torrid Rain kicks off with a Camp-White collaboration called “Tinman.” Camp is on tenor, pushed by a driving beat laid down by drummer-percussionist John Mahon, another Windows alumnus. The muscular bass is supplied by John Menzano. Camp switches to soprano sax for the lovely “My Two Ladies,” “Love is Here to Stay” is a passionate ballad, and Camp squeezes every ounce from it, aided this time by the background singing of Kiki Ebsen. Everything else wails. From the humor of “Saxrap” to the straight-ahead funk of “Slamdunk,” Torrid Rain is a showpiece for a complete artist. Dave Camp has the chops to do whatever he wants on his instrument-and the artistry to make whatever he does a musical statement. Mr. Camp, welcome aboard. In a varied career that has made him one of America’s most listened-to sax players, Dave Camp has toured with Buddy Rich and Chuck Mangione and recorded with the likes of Al Stewart, Jeffrey Osbourne and Peter White. It’s time this gifted artist stepped out on his own. To that worthwhile end, 1201 Music’s Smooth Sounds is delighted to present Torrid Rain Camp’s first CD under his own name. Here, surrounded by a group of accomplished, like-minded friends, Camp stretches his artistic legs, wailing on a gaggle of original tunes, finding his own groove on flute, tenor and soprano. It’s the summation of a musical life that began at the age of 8, when Camp first picked up the flute and found his calling. The sax followed three years later, and in short order Camp was a fixture with the Monterey Jazz Festival all-star High School Band. During these early years, the young prodigy also played tour dates with Mangione and Doc Severinsen. Rather than go on the road right out of high school, Camp enrolled in the prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he majored in saxophone performance and, in the really first break of his career, hooked up with Buddy Rich. After graduation, Camp toured Japan with his own band-playing to packed houses for three weeks-then he went back home to California, where he’s been based ever since. For the past decade, Camp has toured and recorded regularly with Stewart and White. And he’s done frequent gigs with Windows, the popular contemporary jazz group whose releases on Blue Orchid are regular residents on the NAC charts. (Camp’s work with Windows can be heard on From the Asylum and Apples and Oranges, which also features Peter White.) The Camp-Windows connection is very much alive on Torrid Rain Windows founder/leader Skipper Wise produced the album. White co-engineered it, co-wrote many of the songs and lent his performing artistry to every cut but one. That’s him, for instance, playing the nifty acoustic-guitar solo on “You Say.” Torrid Rain kicks off with a Camp-White collaboration called “Tinman.” Camp is on tenor, pushed by a driving beat laid down by drummer-percussionist John Mahon, another Windows alumnus. The muscular bass is supplied by John Menzano. Camp switches to soprano sax for the lovely “My Two Ladies,” “Love is Here to Stay” is a passionate ballad, and Camp squeezes every ounce from it, aided this time by the background singing of Kiki Ebsen. Everything else wails. From the humor of “Saxrap” to the straight-ahead funk of “Slamdunk,” Torrid Rain is a showpiece for a complete artist. Dave Camp has the chops to do whatever he wants on his instrument-and the artistry to make whatever he does a musical statement. Mr. Camp, welcome aboard.